Grateful Dead Music Forum

Threads always seem to be dead by the time I get to ask a question.

Rick? I was hoping to be illuminated on the question about the open-back cabs... but now I have these two crazy photos to inquire about.

First, is this next shot (below) from the February '74 three-nighter at Winterland? What's the deal with Billy's drums being set up (with his own raised cluster of 2-way cabs) way over on Stage Right?




...and would this next shot (below) also be taken from the same February run and ... did the crew REALLY rearrange and move around ALL of the stacks between nights at the same venue? (!?!?!?)

Has anyone tried the Bose L1 system that Rick refers to with a full band?

It doesn't seem like they moved all of the stacks (bass stack stage left is exactly the same setup, if you look at the black vs. natural cabs), but if I had to venture a guess, I'd say they were experimenting with where to put the drums. Perhaps they thought moving them stage right would get them out of the piano. That early in '74, they were still figuring out the optimum setup and it being a multinight home gig, it makes sense they'd try some different things out.

Just my speculation, not based on anything other than what I would be interested in doing if it were me.

tigerstrat wrote:Threads always seem to be dead by the time I get to ask a question.

Rick? I was hoping to be illuminated on the question about the open-back cabs... but now I have these two crazy photos to inquire about.

First, is this next shot (below) from the February '74 three-nighter at Winterland? What's the deal with Billy's drums being set up (with his own raised cluster of 2-way cabs) way over on Stage Right?




...and would this next shot (below) also be taken from the same February run and ... did the crew REALLY rearrange and move around ALL of the stacks between nights at the same venue? (!?!?!?)

(bass stack stage left is exactly the same setup, if you look at the black vs. natural cabs)

In one shot the center vocal cluster and that stage left bass stack are flush against each other, and in the other(with the stage-right drums), Jerry's stack is tucked in between.

The bottom shot was from the little-known night that Billy quit and they were down from 2 to zero drummers. That only lasted a few songs ("We're gonna do Dark Hollow again.....")